A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning. Billie Jean King
It is rightly said that winning and losing are primarily mind games which are eventually executed on the arena be it a battle field, a sports ground or on the personal and professional spheres. Long term winners are those who are able to synchronize their strength, skills and subliminal thoughts proactively, positively and purposefully to drive themselves to their desired goals. This is not as easy at it sounds mainly because we have less control on our thoughts whereas our strengths and skills are more readily manageable through practice, supervision, coaching and sheer hard work. Our thoughts though require us to make much greater efforts to channelize, control and conquer.
Any champion would obviously have gone through the grind of playing and losing before maturing into strong winners. It is in those periods of winning some and losing a lot that a person develops the mindset that will decide if they are champions or end up as merely top rated with potential. A true winner would always go back after a loss to rework strategies with the single minded focus of winning. This is because they have developed their mindset to visualize themselves as winners. They simply hate to lose and it is this reluctance to lose that injects in them a renewed vigor, energy and killer instinct. When they have focused on the goal of winning, they are even prepared to take some calculated risks and that in many cases is the margin between defeat and victory. Winners also develop a high sense of instinct which enables them to anticipate and respond with lightening speed which again gives them the winners edge.
The problem with those who are on the cusp of winning but do not really end up as consistent winners is the fact that they primarily lack the self belief of a winner. Far too often they rationalize their defeat instead of analyzing it threadbare and going back to the drawing board to iron out their flaws. Even more problematic is their inability to visualize themselves as worthy winners and true champions. They lack the killer instinct that winners have embedded in their mind, body and spirit. The swagger, confidence and authority of a winner is rarely seen in the body language, words or attitude of a person who does not fit the bill. When a person does not think like a winner, the fear is that of having to keep up the winning streak and so victory becomes just a desire and not a passionate want. Psychologically therefore anyone who is not fully focused on a win is actually setting themselves up to reconcile to not winning. They seem content with having participated and having reached standards which often do not reflect their true potential.
The best victories though are the ones where we keep upping our expectations from ourselves every single day of our life. If we have progressed much beyond yesterday, if we have overcome challenges that would have normally kept us down, if we have leveraged our potential and gained superlative victories, if we have overcome our own shortcomings be it addictions, personal disabilities or unfortunate quirks of fate and if each day brings us renewed joy, happiness and peace, we can then be sure we have become champions of our destiny .
Remember: “Champions aren´t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision.” Muhammad Ali
Try this:
- The next time you are playing a game, preferably an individual sport even if it is whilst on a holiday check your own attitude and the results. Assume you are playing against someone much younger do you feel a sudden surge of energy if you are losing the game and the urge to win suddenly overpowering?
- When attempting to play a new sport, be aware of your own attitude to learning it. Do you mentally say, it is a new sport so it is ok if I cannot learn it or do you say here is something that I have to master? Notice the attitude you have will reflect in the commitment you make to learning and the speed and progress you make in the learning process.
This post is courtesy www.actspot.com
You are also invited to visit our WEEKLY Inspirational and Motivational Blog www.poweract.blogspot.com
